Classical: New Releases: Verdi: La forza del destino

Dimitri Mitropoulos, one of the supreme conductors of the mid-20th century, directs an incandescent account of one of Verdi’s greatest and most ignorantly criticised works, in a 1960 broadcast from the Vienna Opera. At times, the excitement is almost unbearable. Mitropoulos generated an electric intensity in Verdi that few but Toscanini and Beecham could match. The cast, headed by Antonietta Stella and Giuseppe di Stefano, is first-rate. Alas, Act III suffers the cuts then common, and from which Vienna was not exempt: the enchanting Night Patrol and the second Alvaro-Carlo duet both disappear. But it remains indispensable for Verdians. Three star